Sunderland took on Lincoln with the top of the league in sight, but managed to lose 3-1 thanks to a combination of individual errors and a complete failure to press the right buttons on Chris Maguire’s “send me radged” control panel. Unlike the opposition’s manager, who knew exactly how to build us up before a game and then have his very own Dick Dastardly wind us up like a tickly Ninja. A late rally got us a goal back thanks to the Loch Ness Drogba reacting quickest to Lincoln’s keeper only getting one hand to the penalty, but that was insufficient reward for our fifteen minutes of dominance. A veritable blizzard of cards came in the second half, when a few more were justified in the first, and had a number of players on tenterhooks in the later stages, but failed to calm down certain folks, with things getting decidedly tetchy towards the end. In the final analysis, the Workie-Ticket’s Workie-Ticket came out on top, as for some reason we’d completely forgotten what he reacts to and what he shies away from.
Most of the talk on the way to the match (once we’d discovered the bus was waiting by the side of the Tree instead of out the front) was around who’d be Covid-free and whether Evans’s bang to the head would keep him out beyond the Accy game at the weekend. Stew and I, in the Vaux taproom for a quick catch-up, picked our team and decided that it was more than capable of dealing with a vising bunch of Imps, even if they did have a decidedly charismatic, and legally deposed, king in their line-up. When the team was announced, there were more murmurings about certain clubs calling injuries as Covid rather than calf, but we lined up:
Patterson
Gooch Flanagan Doyle Cirkin
Embleton Winchester Neil Diamond
Pritchard Stewart
..and a subs bench that had most of us Googling “Sunderland – whee’s that, like?” – but contained: O’Brien, Ellis Taylor, Xhemalji, Younger, Hawkes, Carney, and Hume (D). Google them if you like, they’re all ours on a permanent basis.
Lincoln set things away as they attacked the North Stand, where their brave band of fans looked very isolated and alone compared to the last home game when Bolton had packed the Upper Colliery Inn End. We looked disjointed from the off, with several players making daft decisions in terms of who to pass to when they did release the ball. Our default position seemed – no, was – Flan and Doyle playing it to each other across the edge of our penalty area, and while that in itself didn’t bring any direct danger to Patto’s goal, it didn’t allow us to present any threat to the goal at the other end of the field. You could almost see the smiles on the faces of the Lincoln players as we steadfastly refused to give it to anybody in their half of the field. Haway man, Flan, just look to your right and get it over halfway – and Doyle as well. Don’t feel obliged to put your shoulder in and muscle your way into a decent position without doing anything other than a clever-looking cross-field pass that may or not find your wide player.
Not much had happened other than us trying, and failing, to wind up Maguire, which he seemed to respond to in good heart for ten minutes - then hit Winch with a potential leg-breaker, and I don’t say that out of any sort of spite. I’ve seen the videos of the “challenge”, and most of those perpetrating that sort of thing have found themselves with first dabs on the Radox. Lucky there was no VAR, Chris, and very lucky that it was only a yellow. Anyway, that was only ten minutes in, and after Lincoln won the game’s first corner, Maguire responded in a friendly fashion to the applause as he jogged towards the North West corner. We dealt with that, Patto made a decent save when Lincoln drove down our left, and as the game moved into the 18th minute we had an opportunity to create something when the lively Diamond was upended 25 yards or so from goal. Pritch made a real mess of the free, failing with a rather strange attempt to lift the ball over the defence, as the crowd rose to applaud in appreciation of another young life cut tragically short. RIP Harvey McWilliams.
Stewart had been his usual hardworking self, although it took over twenty minutes for him to get the ball in a decent position for a shot, but all he got for his efforts was a corner, which the Imps got to first, even if it was at the expense of another. This one was equally easily dealt with as we seemed to be a yard off the pace in most departments, and another chance was gone before it was created. Half an hour in, Lincoln attacked and Gooch brought down his opponent in their inside left channel, and we were still organising the defence when the kick was taken quickly - something the ref refused to allow us the luxury of for the remaining hour – and the ball came into the box, with us getting in the way of the shot. However, we only cleared it as far as Maguire, lurking near where the kick had been taken, and he hit the ball as it dropped to produce the cleanest of shots that fairly zipped past the helpless Patto and in. A cracker of a goal, the sort only players like Maguire can score, and he did the right thing – initially – by holding his hands in a placatory “I’ll not celebrate overly at a former club” gesture, before sprinting to the dugouts to shout something in LJ’s face. Exactly the sort of thing that saw Max Power rightly booked against Oxford a while ago, but Mr ref didn’t have the guts to intervene this time.
Another corner at the Roker End came to nothing after Stewart’s header was pushed up and over to safety as things just didn’t seem to click for us. With Stewart alone up top, the three behind him seemed to be out of sorts despite Pritch buzzing about in his usual busy manner. On paper, a deep midfield of Neil and Winch, with Diamond, Pritch and Embo in front of them, looked a good idea but it just wasn’t working. We in the technical area otherwise known as the North West corner reckoned we needed to get Winch to right back, Gooch further up the field, and Embo in from wide to central midfield as he looked decidedly out of sorts near the touchline. As if to enforce his defensive credentials, Winch then hit Maguire with a spot of revenge and may or may not have been booked – I couldn’t tell. Anyway, three added minutes were announced which ended with some expressions of dismay from the home crowd.
No changes for the second half in terms of personnel, but LJ must have heard our mutterings about the formation, as he did exactly what we’d hoped. We got things underway with Winch at the back and Embo central, and it made an immediate difference. Like Saturday, we started the second half much livelier and sharper than the first, with an early chance created when Gooch and Pritch combined for the former to sling in a cross from the right that Stewart got his head to, but a defender deflected it behind. Pritch tried the front post routine, but the knock-on was headed away to safety. On 56 minutes, what looked like nothing more than a slightly awkward ball behind our defence saw Flan make an absolute arse of his attempt to win the ball, and Maguire loped into the box to be rugby-tackled by Winch. Straight red, no arguments, which made the questions over him being booked in the first half null and void. Naturally enough, Maguire himself stepped up to smash the ball high to Patto’s right. The sort of penalty you just don’t save, and it was 2-0.
Gooch, his promising little stint up the field curtailed after only ten minutes, moved back to right back and Lincoln did the simple thing of over-running our midfield. We actually got ourselves back into the game with some sterling work across the middle, and when we brought on O’Brien and Hume for Diamond and Cirkin it kept the improved momentum going. Denver was an instant pest with his pace, and caused the visitors some problems as he ran at his opposite number. On the other side of the field, O’Brien did well to link up with Embo and Neil to put in a cross that Pritch ran on to, only to be tripped in the box. A fairly obvious penalty, which Stewart claimed. I don’t know about you, but despite his 100% success rate from the spot, I’ve not been convinced by LND’s penalties, and he nearly backed this up. His effort, low to the keeper’s left, was saved, but as it spun towards the line big Ross showed the perfect striker’s instinct by getting his toe to the ball before the keeper could get his hand to it. A great follow-up for his 18th of the season, but would it be enough to spark a comeback? He then won another header, this time from a free kick, and with the keeper all over the place, but nowhere near the ball, Lincoln hacked it off the line. Embo then took a pass from Neil and saw his shot put behind for another corner which Stewart nodded over the top. With just over twenty minutes to go and the home crowd lifting the players, it looked for a while like we might actually be able to get something. Isn’t optimism a bugger at times?
A while that lasted precisely seven minutes, during which we pressed and passed in the Lincoln half, but which ended when a cross was cleared only as far as Gooch, thirty-odd yards out. He tried a spectacular volley from the inside left area, swinging his leg and connecting with nothing more than a stray midge. The ball bounced away, was knocked into the path of Maguire – who else? – and he raced forward to cleverly clip it over Patto from the edge of the box. Game over.
Hawkes replaced Pritch on 80, and the young Lad did quite well in the limited time he had, showing some nice touches and decent passing, but it was blood and thunder we needed – and blood and thunder we got. Doyle hoyed himself into a naughty challenge right in front of the dugouts, and I fully expected a straight red, but the fact that the entire Lincoln team raced in to create a ruck probably saved him. With both linesmen and the ref involved, there was an almighty tussle in our technical area, LJ and the fourth official came into close contact and our gaffer was sent off. To be fair to him, it would have been pretty difficult, if not impossible, not to get involved when the only players not threatening fisticuffs in your own technical area were your own keeper and the stricken Imp. It was pretty much like a Friday night at chucking out time for a while, but when the dust settled LJ was gone and Doyle was somehow still on the pitch with only a yellow to his name.
Six extra minutes were played, during which we in the stands went through the motions of roaring the Lads on and the Lads went through the motions of going for goal, but all in vain. On a night when precious little went our way, mainly through our own deficiencies, we’d played into the hands of the league’s biggest pantomime villain and gifted them two of their goals in a display littered with individual errors. After his sound display at Wycombe, Flan had looked as shaky as a jelly in a gale, and once again it had taken an age to realise that playing it out from the back only invited the opposition into our danger area. It seems like we’re very susceptible to mind games in the run up to matches, with the opposition manager making complimentary statements about our players, fans, and club, then exploiting our resulting smugness. Time to get streetwise, LJ.
Man of the Match? There was another tireless display from Pritch, but equally tireless and mostly moving into decent positions, was Stewart. The big man notched another goal to cement his position as our top performer on the night, so he gets my vote.
